University of Westminster
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| Representing Britishness: new companions Ryan and Yasmin |
The new series of Doctor Who is notable for its
inclusivity. Much attention has rightly
focused on the long-overdue casting of a woman to play the Doctor and Jodie
Whittaker’s predictably superb performance.
Diversity in the show has also benefitted from the introduction in ‘The
Woman Who Fell to Earth’ (2018) of the Doctor’s first Asian companion (Yaz),
first middle-aged companion (Graham) and fourth Black companion (Ryan). Yaz’s
and Ryan’s recruitment into the TARDIS contributes to a sense of celebration of
Britain
as a multi-racial country. Ryan (presently a warehouse worker) and Graham (former bus driver) join the brief list of the Doctor's unequivocally working class companions. Graham’s
efforts to secure an emotional relationship with Ryan as grandson are not merely
touching but also reflect how ‘complicated families’ are now part of life in Britain and
beyond. Furthermore Graham’s expressions
of feelings for Ryan also erode notions of the ‘stiff upper lip’ Brit and of
natural gender difference in the articulation of emotions.
Doctor Who’s cultivation of a different sort of inclusivity may
have attracted less attention. It
concerns the show’s ambitions to reflect Britain as a geographical whole. The
Doctor speaks in a Yorkshire (northern
English) accent. The opening episode is
set in Sheffield, in Yorkshire . Two of the companions - Ryan and Yaz - speak in Sheffield
accents whilst Graham has a cockney, London
accent. So three of the four TARDIS crew speak in Yorkshire
accents and none uses RP – Received
Pronunciation – the standard form of British pronunciation of English based on
a southern English accent and traditionally heavily promoted by the British
Broadcasting Corporation in earlier decades to the exclusion of regional
accents. This ‘critical mass’ of northern accents is remarkable, especially
given the conflict with the production team which Christopher Eccleston engendered
by using a northern accent to play the ninth Doctor.
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| Northern Powerhouse: the Doctor excited to commence her career in manufacturing |
No less remarkable was using Sheffield
as a setting, enabling the use of several minor characters also with Yorkshire accents.
The show’s ‘London-heavy’ tradition was only marginally eroded by
staging the last series ostensibly at a university in Bristol
in the south west of the country. The Bristol setting was compromised through the scant use of actors with Bristol accents let alone Bristol landmarks. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Bristol got a raw deal as an 'anywhere-but-London' token setting. The shift to Sheffield
was more genuine and it is to be hoped that it becomes a base for
more than one adventure. Furthermore the
Doctor’s manufacture of a sonic screwdriver from Sheffield
steel gently connotes optimism about the North’s industrial future, forming a
contrast to Brit-grit films about the city such as The Full Monty (1997) which do not see beyond the post-industrial.
But the changes go further. Since 1963 Doctor Who has introduced us to an array of non-Earth
humanoids. Part of the vast 'willing
suspension of disbelief' which Doctor Who
requires of its viewers is that the universe is full of species who look just
like us. These non-human humanoids overwhelmingly spoke in RP accents, especially in classic-series Doctor Who. This was often the case
even where the characters were working class, such as the Peladonian miners in ‘The
Monster of Peladon’ (1974). Possibly RP provided
a kind of neutrality, an umbrella under which alien voices could be imagined. This tradition has now been eroded in ‘The
Ghost Monument’ (2018):
GRAHAM: ‘Scuse me! We are human
beings! Show a bit of solidarity!
EPZO: (in a Northern
English accent) I’m Muxteran, she’s Albarian.
ANGSTROM: (in a Northern Irish accent) Never even heard of Moomanbeans!
